Conservative and a Vegan in New York. Wait! You Are, Too?

Ann Porter and Josh Loigman were married July 7 at Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, N.Y.CreditLauren Lancaster for The New York Times

By Tammy La Gorce

July 20, 2018

Long before Josh Loigman and Ann Porter became lawyers, they got used to defending themselves in the court of public opinion.

“People always tell me I’ve found the only other person in the world who’s a conservative vegan,” said Ms. Porter, a trusts and estates lawyer at Norton Rose Fulbright in Manhattan. “It does sort of feel that way.”

Image

Ms. Porter is escorted by her mother, Prudence Porter, to the outdoor ceremony.CreditLauren Lancaster for The New York Times

Mr. Loigman, an assistant district attorney in the Bronx, agreed that “there’s definitely a stereotype about vegans, that they’re these hippie, liberal people. That’s not us at all.”

Ms. Porter, 28, and Mr. Loigman, 30, met in 2013 as first-year law school students at George Washington University. Both had been deflecting doubts since they were children about their conviction that eating meat is immoral. Both were also learning to fend off judgment for their conservative political views, especially among fellow vegans. But if they were a match made in right-leaning, animal-rights heaven, it took them a while to realize it.

Image

The ceremony was held in a grassy garden under an arch woven with ranunculus and roses.CreditLauren Lancaster for The New York Times

Though Mr. Loigman noticed Ms. Porter when they first started classes in fall 2012, Ms. Porter doesn’t remember seeing him until January 2013, when both went to hear Bruce Friedrich, an animal welfare proponent, speak to the law school’s Student Animal Legal Defense Fund. Ms. Porter introduced herself, not knowing he had a girlfriend.

“After the speaker everyone was sitting around talking,” said Caroline Gignoux, one of Ms. Porter’s law school friends and her companion that night. “We saw Josh, and I don’t know how, but I knew he was vegan. Annie commented to me how buff this guy was. We thought all vegans were really skinny. So we decided that would be our icebreaker. We went over to his table and said, ‘How are you so buff?’”

Image

The Rev. Anthony Mizzi-Gili Jr. led the ceremony.CreditLauren Lancaster for The New York Times

Mr. Loigman, who worked in a gym and did lobbying work for the Humane Society just before enrolling in law school, extolled the benefits of protein powder and weight lifting (and he still does). Then, Ms. Porter said, “he abruptly got up and said his girlfriend was there to take him to the basketball game.” He left with a secret crush on Ms. Porter. Days later, he was messaging her and Ms. Gignoux on Facebook.

“He started sending us news about animal welfare and articles he didn’t agree with because of their perspective,” Ms. Porter said. Within a week, he asked them to lunch at Rice Bar, a Korean restaurant near the law school. The three-way invitation was Mr. Loigman’s way of being aboveboard about his relationship status. But Ms. Gignoux knew before her bibimbap (a mixed-rice dish) was served that her presence was incidental.

Image

The bride wore a Galia Lahav mermaid dress with dramatic train, while the groom had on a black Kenneth Cole tuxedo.CreditLauren Lancaster for The New York Times

“It became clear as soon as we sat down that they had this intellectual spark,” Ms. Gignoux said. “They were talking about animal rights and how they were intertwined with politics. I couldn’t contribute anything to the conversation. But Annie is brilliant, and he was totally on her level.”

That included politically. “I thought, he’s for sure going to be turned off because I’m conservative,” said Ms. Porter, who is a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She is also a descendant of Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, and a distant relative of Daniel Boone, the frontiersman and explorer.

In liberal-leaning Manhattan, Ms. Porter said, her fiscal and social conservatism is challenged regularly. At that first lunch with Mr. Loigman, “I thought we’d have a debate about it. But he said, ‘No, I’m conservative, too,’” she said.

Ms. Porter grew up in Summit, N.J., with her parents, Prudence and Michael Porter, who indulged, reluctantly, her hobby of rescuing animals. By the time she was a teenager she had adopted dogs, cats, snails, frogs, birds and a freshwater clam named Clammy. She announced her vegetarianism around age 7.

Image

The couple met in 2013 as first-year law school students at George Washington University.CreditLauren Lancaster for The New York Times

Mr. Loigman became a vegan after reading the book “Diet for a New America” as a 14-year-old in Ocean, N.J. His mother, Tracy Loigman, was accommodating. His father, Larry, didn’t discuss it much, he said.

Ms. Porter discussed her passion for animals all the time. Mr. Loigman suspected he could convince her to convert from a vegetarian to vegan, a matter of offloading dairy and eggs from her diet and non-vegan clothes from her wardrobe.

Image

Their first interaction was at an event for the law school’s Student Animal Legal Defense Fund. Both Ms. Porter and Mr. Loigman are vegans and political conservatives.CreditLauren Lancaster for The New York Times

“He sent me this article by Matthew Scully,” a former speechwriter for George W. Bush, Ms. Porter said. “The article was about the parallels between being pro-life and veganism.” Ms. Porter, who is against abortion rights, was moved. “I couldn’t believe how inconsistent my belief systems were. I opened the refrigerator and saw milk in there, and I was disgusted,” she said.

Her conversion happened right then.

Her status as Mr. Loigman’s girlfriend, though, was taking its time to develop. It was not until the beginning of their second year of law school that Mr. Loigman sent what they now affectionately call “the Scully article,” originally printed in National Review. (“We are a couple with a William F. Buckley Jr., obsession,” Mr. Loigman said of the late conservative pundit who founded that magazine.) And though their friendship was well established by then and both were single, Mr. Loigman’s initial romantic overture was inviting Ms. Porter to a sports bar to watch a football game. Dinner, at halftime, was veggie Subway sandwiches.

Image

“People always tell me I’ve found the only other person in the world who’s a conservative vegan,” Ms. Porter said.CreditLauren Lancaster for The New York Times

He now calls his first-date planning skills “pathetic.”

“I think I’ve gotten better since then,” he added.

After graduating from law school, Mr. Loigman and Ms. Porter accepted jobs in New York before taking the bar exam in 2015. By then, their intellectual swooning phase was over, and they were a contented couple. But, “I’m pretty traditional, so I didn’t want to move in together until we were engaged,” Ms. Porter said. They settled into apartments seven blocks apart and hunkered down. “Most couples went out Friday nights. Josh and I would sit home and debate the death penalty.” (One is a proponent of capital punishment, the other is ambivalent.)

While they were debating, Mr. Loigman was growing a savings account to buy a cushion-cut diamond ring. “I put change into that account for years,” he said. When he started working at the district attorney’s office in 2015, chunks of his paycheck went in, too. On Sept. 7, 2016, or maybe Sept. 8 — time stamps on their phones are inconclusive — Mr. Loigman proposed at a lake house they rented for a weekend getaway in West Shokan, N.Y.

He intended to present the ring on Sept. 8, but Ms. Porter woke up a little before midnight on Sept. 7 while Mr. Loigman was setting the scene, complete with a custom-made board game about their relationship, to propose. He regrouped, recited the Aristotle quote, “Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies,” and asked Ms. Porter to be his wife. Ms. Porter, through what she called “hysterical tears,” said yes.

On July 7, before 100 guests at Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, N.Y., Mr. Loigman, in a black Kenneth Cole tuxedo, and Ms. Porter, in a Galia Lahav mermaid dress with dramatic train and vintage Tiffany earrings borrowed from her mother, met in a grassy garden under brilliant sunshine and an arch woven with ranunculus and roses. The Rev. Anthony Mizzi-Gili Jr., a Roman Catholic priest, performed the ceremony, as a 10-person wedding party, most showing their solidarity with the vegan couple by wearing no silk, leather or wool, looked on.

At a reception in an outdoor pavilion, the usual choice of chicken or fish was replaced with vegan options: rice noodles with coconut green curry, tomato basil risotto and tofu with Japanese sweet potato. Though many of the relatives who had criticized them in their youth for forgoing meat were in attendance, no one complained. In fact, Cheryl Rajewski, a Porter family friend who is lifelong meat-eater and chef, was fantasizing about the curry during cocktail hour. “I know it’s going to be delicious,” she said. “I can’t wait.”

ON THIS DAY

When July 7, 2018.

Where Mohonk Mountain House, New Paltz, N.Y.

Still Enchanted As Ms. Porter walked down the aisle with her mother, Prudence Porter, a harpist played Taylor Swift’s “Enchanted,” the song Mr. Loigman had cued when he proposed at the lake house. The song was also Mr. Loigman and Ms. Porter’s first dance at the reception.

Absences Ms. Porter’s mother was the couple’s only parent in attendance. Her father, Michael Porter, died in 2005. Mr. Loigman’s parents did not attend because of religious differences. “My parents felt strongly about me marrying someone Jewish and having a Jewish wedding,” Mr. Loigman said.

Furry Homecoming Mr. Loigman and Ms. Porter returned to the Upper East Side studio apartment they share with their two rescue dogs, Forest and Kingsford, and their cats, Simon and Henry.

Continue following our fashion and lifestyle coverage on Facebook (Styles and Modern Love), Twitter (Styles, Fashion, and Vows) and Instagram.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page ST11 of the New York edition with the headline: A Non-Liberal Vegan in New York? Actually, There’s a Pair. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe